The happy people of the world have their value, but only the negative value of foils. They throw up and emphasise the beauty and the fascination of the unhappy.
In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. The last is much the worst—the last is a real tragedy.
Disobedience in the eyes of anyone who has read history is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made—through disobedience and rebellion.
It is not wise to find symbols in everything that one sees. It makes life too full of terrors.
Comfort is the only thing our civilisation can give us.
Politics are my only pleasure. You see nowadays it is not fashionable to flirt till one is forty or to be romantic till one is forty-five, so we poor women who are under thirty, or say we are, have nothing open to us but politics or philanthropy. And philanthropy seems to me to have become simply the refuge of people who wish to annoy their fellow-creatures. I prefer politics. I think they are more ... becoming.
One's past is what one is. It is the only way by which people should be judged.
In a very ugly and sensible age the arts borrow, not from life, but from each other.
It is always a silly thing to give advice, but to give good advice is fatal.
Secrets from other people's wives are a necessary luxury in modern life. So, at least, I am told at the club by people who are bald enough to know better. But no man should have a secret from his own wife. She invariably finds it out. Women have a wonderful instinct about things. They discover everything except the obvious.